Time travel

Today's photo is one I made with my little black-and-white Polaroid camera. I was in my first year of college. That little camera made really good pictures, given its low cost and ease of operation. I've always loved black-and-white photos.

At any rate, this is my family, late 1969, early 1970. My mother was probably about 36 or 37. Daddy being 21 years older was about 57 or 58. Sheila (the second oldest of the kids) is 16 or so. Curtis is about 14. Sally is about 8, Delmer about 6. I (age 18) am taking the photo, so I'm not in it. The silhouette in the background is either Sally or Delmer. Someone did one of each of them when they were little, but I don't remember who, nor do I remember where those are now. Probably Sally has them.

We are in my parents' home in Olla, the one Mama and Daddy built with their own two hands. Another family lives there now and has for many years, but it's still my old homeplace. Now and then, I drive by when I'm back in Louisiana visiting my family. But I never stop. I don't know that family. Sometimes I don't know if I know my own family, either. Living so far away for so many years has put more than distance between us. My career and education are foreign to them, and I can't imagine living as they do. But I've written about all that before, far too many times.

What's strange to me now is how beautiful they look to me. Why is it that at the time, I couldn't see anything positive in my family? In fact, I'm not really sure why I gathered them together for a photo, other than to use my new camera. I'm quite positive that I had no clue that the camera would be gone forever by this point, and all I'd have left is a handful of photographs, one of which is this treasured snapshot.